Stupid AI

[Blake]

The AI is actually more than happy to trade GPT if they have GPT to trade. This is very rare, except late in the game and/or harder difficulty levels (and insane production bonuses). And sometiems, for no apparent reason, an AI will suddenly start having GPT to trade.
(Well, the reason is they musta stopped maxing science, but it's not clear why they only do it very rarely... when it's a very valid strategy quite often...).
Well, the AI is just bad in that area. And could be improved. Especially by adding multiple 'strategies' (Max science, Max gold, etc....) that it can choose between.

And I don't think there is ever ever ever any reason to accept a gift of 1 gold, but not a gift of 1 gpt for 20 turns

[vondrack]

Originally posted by miccofl
And Coracle, have you considered buying a strategy guide? They are written specifically for people who just can’t seem to get a handle on the game’s advanced features.

While this suggestion made me ROFL, as it expresses what I think of Coracle's neverending complaints better than I would be able to formulate it, it is fair to note that there is probably no good Civ3 strategy guide around, I think. The Official Prima Strategy Guide was not particularly helpful even on the release date and is now quite useless due to numerous important changes and adjustments introduced in the subsequent patches.

[miccofl]

there is probably no good Civ3 strategy guide around

Sorry Coracle, you're SOL.

[Arrian]

I'd agree with the majority here: most likely you broke some kind of trade deal or alliance in the past, which means your reputation is FUBAR. The AI will probably still accept lump sums, though.

-Arrian

[phunny_pharmer]

But what about this situation, which is downright infuriating.

You're at war with an AI, and killing it. You've taken out the majority of his/her/it's army, and are beginning to romp through its territory. So, you take 20% of his cities, your republic starts to get mad at you (because you started the war), and you just want out, because you are waging a limited campaign.

Then, at the peace table, you demand city x and city y. Now, the AI says that they will give you city x for peace, or city y for peace. However, when you demand both, the advisor tells you "we are getting close to a deal"...

Now, the infuriating part. If you offer them gold to make up the difference, the advisor goes to "insulted." If you offer gpt, the advisor also goes sour. Even if you offer tech, world map, ROP, MPP, or anything else (I haven't had any workers in my capital, or I would have tried that)- the AI won't take it.

So, why are you always left with a bad deal? What can you offer them to prevent the "insulted" face and still get both cities?

[Palleon]

I would like to see the addition on the foreign advisor screen as to what your reputation actually is. It would be nice to know what people think of you, and what you did to ruin it. Also, I don't think the AI is really affected by this, I've seen them break MPP and ROP agreements all the time to go to war with a civ, mainly because I dragged them into a war specificially to tarnish their reputation (They make a MPP, I give them some tech for them to declare war), and they have anouther MPP up as soon as the war is over. If I had done that, I'd never be able to even get an ROP again, let alone the fact that civs will usually say I broke a ROP agreement even when I never had one. But I've said this many times before, diplomacy and the UN need major overhauls in this game, it's one of the only things in Civ3 I can actually say I've been disappointed in. They did so much work to make SMAC a diplomatic masterpiece, then dumbed down the system for this.